Chuck
10-04-2006, 12:30 PM
Brazilian-made Obvio! will either be the little green car that could or just roadkill. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14957581/site/newsweek/)
Mac Margolis - Newsweek - Oct. 2, 2006
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Obvio.jpg
0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds and 40 mpg on the highway, 29 city.
When automotive enthusiast Ricardo Machado made his play for the U.S. car market last year, no one paid him much mind. Machado, a lawyer and real-estate broker in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was by his own admission a stranger to the global automobile industry. What's more, the vehicle he unveiled at a July custom-car fair in Los Angeles—a whimsical, hybrid-fuel three-seater called the Obvio!-had yet to hit the road in America, or anywhere else for that matter.
But in just a few weeks, the Obvio-which Machado's designers modeled after an old Brazilian buggy-started getting second looks. Maybe it was the green-and-tangerine finish, or the trendy Brazilian Havaiana flip-flops glued to the gas and brake pedals. The engine-built to burn gasoline, ethanol or even natural gas-surely helped. "We had to rope it off at the San Francisco auto show" last November, Machado says. It wasn't just idle gawking: by fall 2007, the first batch of a total of 50,000 Brazilian Obvios (some models fitted with electrical engines) will hit the United States. A separate deal to send another 100,000 to Japan and Europe is also in the works.
The Obvio-it's Portuguese for "obvious"-owes much of its success to serendipity. Some months before its U.S. debut, a small, environmentally friendly California-based company called ZAP (Zero Air Pollution) had placed a $1 billion order with DaimlerChrysler to import "smart" minicars to the U.S. market. But the deal fell through. With "green" subcompacts sprouting up everywhere, ZAP put down $700 million for a 20 percent stake in the Obvio because "these are absolute pocket rockets," ZAP CEO Steven Schneider says. "These cars are where muscle cars meet green cars."
American consumers may not be as juiced. The Obvio is beyond small. Just nine feet long, it is 34 inches shorter than the Mini Cooper. ("Roadkill," sniffed a skeptical blogger.) More important, while Brazilians are proud of their fleet of hybrid cars that can run on gasoline or alcohol distilled from sugar cane, the advantages of "flex-fuel" engines may be limited in America, where ethanol is still scarce.
Still, the micro's moguls are counting on the allure of a car that goes from zero to 60 in 4.2 seconds and is competitive when it comes to fuel efficiency. The Obvio gets 40 mpg on the highway, 29 in the city, which is better than the Mini. At $14,000, it retails for about half the price of a Toyota Prius. (A sportier Obvio will fetch $28,000.) "If it does what it's supposed to do, there is nothing else [like it] out there," says Philip Reed, consumer-advice editor for online automotive Web site Edmunds.com. There's certainly nothing else out there that looks like it.
Mac Margolis - Newsweek - Oct. 2, 2006
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Obvio.jpg
0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds and 40 mpg on the highway, 29 city.
When automotive enthusiast Ricardo Machado made his play for the U.S. car market last year, no one paid him much mind. Machado, a lawyer and real-estate broker in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was by his own admission a stranger to the global automobile industry. What's more, the vehicle he unveiled at a July custom-car fair in Los Angeles—a whimsical, hybrid-fuel three-seater called the Obvio!-had yet to hit the road in America, or anywhere else for that matter.
But in just a few weeks, the Obvio-which Machado's designers modeled after an old Brazilian buggy-started getting second looks. Maybe it was the green-and-tangerine finish, or the trendy Brazilian Havaiana flip-flops glued to the gas and brake pedals. The engine-built to burn gasoline, ethanol or even natural gas-surely helped. "We had to rope it off at the San Francisco auto show" last November, Machado says. It wasn't just idle gawking: by fall 2007, the first batch of a total of 50,000 Brazilian Obvios (some models fitted with electrical engines) will hit the United States. A separate deal to send another 100,000 to Japan and Europe is also in the works.
The Obvio-it's Portuguese for "obvious"-owes much of its success to serendipity. Some months before its U.S. debut, a small, environmentally friendly California-based company called ZAP (Zero Air Pollution) had placed a $1 billion order with DaimlerChrysler to import "smart" minicars to the U.S. market. But the deal fell through. With "green" subcompacts sprouting up everywhere, ZAP put down $700 million for a 20 percent stake in the Obvio because "these are absolute pocket rockets," ZAP CEO Steven Schneider says. "These cars are where muscle cars meet green cars."
American consumers may not be as juiced. The Obvio is beyond small. Just nine feet long, it is 34 inches shorter than the Mini Cooper. ("Roadkill," sniffed a skeptical blogger.) More important, while Brazilians are proud of their fleet of hybrid cars that can run on gasoline or alcohol distilled from sugar cane, the advantages of "flex-fuel" engines may be limited in America, where ethanol is still scarce.
Still, the micro's moguls are counting on the allure of a car that goes from zero to 60 in 4.2 seconds and is competitive when it comes to fuel efficiency. The Obvio gets 40 mpg on the highway, 29 in the city, which is better than the Mini. At $14,000, it retails for about half the price of a Toyota Prius. (A sportier Obvio will fetch $28,000.) "If it does what it's supposed to do, there is nothing else [like it] out there," says Philip Reed, consumer-advice editor for online automotive Web site Edmunds.com. There's certainly nothing else out there that looks like it.